Attitude of Nurses towards Professional Development for Improved Service Delivery at the Jos University Teaching Hospital

Professional development is desirous for any nursing official who is engaged in patient’s care and teaching or mentoring of student nurses. This research paper evaluated the attitude of nurses toward professional development trainings, assessed the reasons for their attitude in the professional development trainings and tried to proffer suggestions that will improve on the professional development of the nurses. It was a prospective, randomized, questionnaire-based cross-sectional descriptive survey of the attitude of nurses towards professional development among nurses working at the Jos University Teaching Hospital, Jos, Nigeria. One hundred and thirty-one nurses were studied, 99 (76%) were females and 22 (24%) were males (F: M=4.5:1). Results showed that the majority of the nurses had adequate knowledge about the nursing profession and professional development, and were would like to embrace further professional training given the opportunity, necessary motivation, support and encouragement. Many factors militated against the nurses’ interest in the professional development trainings, including family commitment, distances, time and lack of institutional financial support. It is recommended that professional development trainings should be encouraged. Nurses may be motivated and encouraged to participate in the professional development trainings in order to achieve the individual and organizational goal of quality health care delivery to patients.